


He didn't come anywhere near my tabloids

by afra_schatz



Category: Sherlock Holmes (Downey films)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Humor, the thin man - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-28
Updated: 2013-01-28
Packaged: 2017-11-27 07:34:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/659458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afra_schatz/pseuds/afra_schatz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jude and Robert meet on the set of a "The Thin Man" remake. And let's just say they don't click like Nick and Nora.</p>
            </blockquote>





	He didn't come anywhere near my tabloids

The first time someone knocked him out cold, Robert was well in his twenties. That last bit should actually be the most baffling of it all, considering what kind of life Robert had been leading up to that point. Not that he made a habit out of associating with price boxers or anything, but he knew the occasional shady character or other, surely.

Of course, at the time, Robert wasn’t really contemplating this. First, he was knocked out, then – when he woke up again, lying spread out on a bed, with people bending over him with concerned looks in several degrees on their faces – he was pretty fucking busy thinking his head was cracked open.

“What kind of fucking bedside manner is that?” he complained first thing, and most of the concerned faces disappeared from view instantly. Yeah, so Robert wasn’t exactly below lashing out at the first person he could get his hands on, and that was something everyone on this set knew already.

He sat up, and his vision swam a little. The back of his head started throbbing, and it didn’t make it better when he started prodding it experimentally.

“You shouldn’t do that. Makes it worse.”

Robert glared up at Jude Law. His fucking always dapper co-star.The guy who was supposed to play his husband. The guy who had just knocked him out cold.

“You fucking hit me, you arse,” Robert said, as it settled in.

“You hit your head against the bedpost,” Jude replied calmly. “Besides, I was supposed to. The script said so. Did you read it?”

It was a pity really, the casting of his co-star. Because aside from Jude Law? This project had Robert Downey Jr. written all over it.

They were shooting a re-make of the 1934 classic “The Thin Man”, and classic crime comedy was right up Robert’s alley. Furthermore, he’d always wanted to play someone married, and he’d figured that this was the perfect opportunity – he had a tendencyto sleep with his female co-stars who had a tendency to slap him in the face on sight afterwards. So, playing gay-married – as one half of the slightly tweaked re-incarnation of the Charleses (it was Nick and Nolan now, instead of Nick and Nora) – was just perfect.

If there wasn’t the little fact that he was fake-gay-married to Jude fucking Law.

“Mr. Downey?” The continuity girl approached him with caution. “Err, you alright? You kinda zoned out there, for a sec.”

“Like that’s new,” commented Jude quietly, but loud enough for Robert (and a grinning camera man) to hear.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” Robert insisted and batted the hand of the continuity girl away. He pointed at Jude. “And yes, I knew what it says in the script. ‘Nick pushes Nolan out of the way to get to Morelli’s revolver.’ Doesn’t say you’re supposed to knock me unconscious for real. Does it,–” he looked at the guy who played the gangster Morelli for confirmation and remembered that he had no idea what he was called, “err, Morelli?”

“Leave me out of this, I don’t do marriage counseling.”

Morelli idly pulled his revolver out of his jacket pocket again, preparing for the next take. Robert arched both eyebrows, eyes fixing on it.

“Do you mind putting that gun away? My husband doesn't care, but I'm in a delicate condition.”

There was chuckling all around, and even Jude’s lips twitched as he resumed his position, sitting next to Robert on the bed. He leaned over, like bowing down for a kiss. But instead of pecking him, he said,

“I’m so proud of you, you got it almost right this time. Only that that’s my line, Mr. Charles.”

Robert smiled what he thought passed as a sweet smile and replied in the perfect imitation of Jude’s conversational tone of voice,

“I can’t for my life figure why anyone would want to shoot you, Mr. Charles.”

Moriarty, the bulldog playing their dog Asta, took that moment to jump onto the bed and nearly shoved Robert off the edge. Jude didn’t even try to bite back his laughter as he patted the dog’s head.

At this point, two weeks of shooting boiled down to one thing. Robert wanted a divorce.

It so wasn’t fair. Okay, so maybe Robert had forgotten to learn his lines properly once. Or maybe twice. Fine, it happened a couple of times, but that was only because he was in between memorizing methods. He had to make sure that placing his script under his pillow and then proceeding to drink the entire hotel mini-bar really, really didn’t work.

“It’s fucking bad form of him,” Robert said, never one to keep his internal monologue actually internal.

He was sitting at the hotel bar and hadn’t been talking to anyone in particular. Granted, given that the actor playing Morelli (Jeff Donovan, Robert reminded himself) was sitting right next to him, it made sense that he looked at Robert strangely now.

“Who are we talking about?” Jeff asked. “I’d like to know whether I can get fired for this.”

“Nick Charles himself,” Robert sighed. “Jude fucking Law.”

“I might actually get fired for that,” Jeff mused. Robert of course ignored him.

“I mean, it’s not my fault that everything seems less glossy and picture perfect in comparison to Mr. Law. I tell you what, he is deliberately showing me up. He’s trying to make me look unprofessional.”

“He hide your pants the day before yesterday?” Jeff asked with mild interest.

Robert frowned, thought about it and then grudgingly had to shake his head.

“Well, no. I forgot to put them back on again.” Before Jeff had to ask, he elaborated, “I always take them off when I’m having lunch. It’s a method thing.”

“Oh, sure.” Jeff sounded like someone who didn’t care to piss off one of the two male leads. Wise man.

“I’m just saying,” Robert said, drained his drink, and swiftly poured himself a new one, “if he was only half of the perfect co-star everyone said he was, he’d at least have screwed up a couple of times. Just so I don’t look bad.”

“You mean, not learn his lines orbe nice to the make-up artists?”

“Exactly.”

Jeff fingered the glass on the bar in front of him contemplatively. It contained a yoghurt milkshake. Robert found that highly disturbing.

Conversationally, Jeff said, “Or, just a thought, you could actually learn your lines.”

Robert glared at him.

“I could get you fired, you know.”

Jeff shrugged, tilted his head and regarded him with a look that reminded Robert distinctly of a freezer.

“I could get you killed, you know. I know people.”

Robert eyed him skeptically, and what he saw on Jeff’s face made him discreetly pull his vodka bottle out of range. His barstool made a horrible screeching noise when he moved it a little further away from Jeff. He cleared his throat.

“As pleasantly disturbing as that is, we’re currently discussing my problems with my co-star and not your psychoses, are we not?”

Jeff, the straw of his milkshake between his teeth, smiled pleasantly and nodded. Robert was still a bit thrown by that shark-like expression on his face, but in the long run he had more important things to worry about.

“I’m just saying. ‘The Thin Man’ sets during the prohibition. When I get drunk, it’s character research. It by no means should be held against me. I take my research very seriously. Always.”

“Interesting.” Jeff sipped from his milkshake. “Say, about that gay-marriage thing, did you do 'extensive research' for the bedroom scenes as well?”

“What?”

Jeff shrugged. 

“I’m just saying. Your fixation with Jude sounds a bit like ‘a woman scorned’, don’t you think?”

“I think,” Robert said with all the graveness he could muster (which wasn’t that much, granted, since he had to steady himself against the bar when he stood up), “I hate you.”

Jeff shrugged again. 

“Fine by me. Makes me feel like I’m one of the cool kids.”

Robert picked up his bottle of vodka (his only friend, the only one who understood him) and hugged it to his chest.

“I am going to unfriend you on Livejournal.”

For the next couple of hours – he spent them in the elevator of his hotel, elevator rides always calmed him down and he still had half a bottle of vodka to finish – Robert swore to himself to never accept a role without a thorough background check on ALL the other actors beforehand again. He honestly wished he had a wife, only so she could remind him of that when the time came.

He was just about to finally leave the elevator when the door opened, and Jude Law stepped inside.

“Oh, hi,” he greeted when he saw Robert sitting in a corner. “Was your usual place under the bridge occupied already?”

Robert looked at him with a frown of confusion, and Jude silently pointed at the bottle in Robert’s arm. Robert pulled a face and pointed at Jude accusingly.

“It’s your fault. You’re the one who got me in this!”

“I believe,” Jude said, amusement in his voice, as he pressed the button for his floor, “that this, too, was my line.”

“You’re the one who got me into this!” Robert insisted, only louder now, because that’s what his acting teacher had always told him. When in doubt, do it again, only yell.

Jude turned around and leaned against the glass-paneled wall of the elevator.

“I know but this is different,” he said, and distantly, Robert recognized these lines. “You’re a crazy man. You might kill yourself.”

“That’s not how it goes,” Robert pointed out, gleefully triumphant. “It’s ‘he’s a crazy man’. You got it wrong, you got it wrong.”

Jude arched an eyebrow in response to Robert’s singsongy voice.

“Actually, I don’t think I have. You’re pretty out of it.”

“I’ll be alright,” Robert said, in character again, and since it was actually Jude’s character he was impersonating, he did it with his poshest voice. “I got Moriarty to protect me.”

“Asta, the dog is called Asta.”

Robert waved it aside and switched to Nolan Charles now – it figured that he had to do all the heavy lifting by himself, do both parts at once.

“Go on, go on. See if I care. But it’s a dirty trick, bringing me all the way to New York just to make me a widower.”

Jude tilted his head, and it was Nick who then smiled softly down at Robert.

“Ah, you wouldn’t be a widower long.”

“You bet I wouldn’t!” Robert replied smugly.

“Not with all your money.”

Robert looked at Jude, scandalized (no matter that he really should have seen that one coming, given that it was in the script and all).

“You dog!”

The elevator ground to a halt, and Jude pushed himself away from the wall.

“Goodbye, darling.”

Robert flipped him off. Jude shook his head and got off the elevator. But just before the doors closed again, he stopped it by shoving an arm in between. With something like an exasperated sigh, the doors opened again. Robert looked up at Jude quizzically.

Jude enquired, “Isn’t your room on the same floor as mine?”

“Why do you want to know?” Robert asked back skeptically. “I am not doing 'extensive research' with you!”

Jude looked honestly befuddled.

“I want to know because this is my, and by extension, our floor. Don’t you want to get off?”

“Not with you, I don’t!”

The nerve of some people! Okay, Jude might be sorta handsome, if you went for that type (and by that type Robert meant the type without breasts and other female parts that he himself was very, very fond of). But to just assume that everyone would want to get off with them –

Jude once again pushed the doors back that tried to close again.

“Off the elevator. To get to your room.”

Robert sighed with relief.

“Oh, I see. And no. I like riding the elevator. It sort of symbolizes the ups and downs of life, you know?”

Jude hummed understandingly.

“Sort of the rollercoaster for poor people?”

“Better than a rollercoaster. Those always make me want to vomit.”

Jude pulled a face that actually looked genuinely sympathetic.

“Same with me and boats. I get seasick, just looking at them.”

“Good thing we’re not doing a remake of Titanic, then.”

“Ah, I don’t know.” Again, the elevator door tried to close, but Jude stopped it once more. “You’d make a convincing Rose I think. All with the singing and the waving about of arms on shipfronts like a crazy drunkard.”

Robert weighed his head from side to side and then nodded sagely.

“I’m the king of the world, and I’d rather be his whore than your wife. Err husband.”

Surprisingly, Jude laughed heartily at that. He gestured at the bottle in Robert’s arms.

“Looks like that one is threatening to run empty, sailor.”

Robert sighed ostentatiously. “That’s the fate of all bottles.”

After a moment’s pause, Jude said, “I can offer you a nightcap if you want one.”

“I’m not doing 'extensive research' with you,” Robert insisted, but found himself getting to his feet anyway.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Jude shook his head and had a steadying hand on Robert’s arm as he exited the elevator.

“I mean, I am willing to get royally plastered with you, for the sake of the movie and research on prohibition and all that,” Robert explained. “But that’s it. I draw a line at monkey business between the sheets.”

Jude scoffed good-naturedly. “Trust me, before you find me between your sheets? You first find actual chimpanzees there.”

Robert leaned against the wall (okay, Jude leaned him against the wall, like he was a somewhat inconveniently large piece of furniture) while Jude unlocked his door.

“That was the first sensible thing I heard coming out of your mouth since, ever.”

The next morning, Robert woke up on a pile of cushions on the balcony, a self-made paper crown on his head and a woolen sock (not his) pulled over his right hand. He found Jude sound asleep in his empty bathtub, wearing Robert’s right shoe and a chamber maid’s apron over the clothes he’d worn the night before. Strange, maybe, but certainly less disturbing than it would have been to indeed wake up in the same bed in some state of undress. Robert, once again, was glad that he was filming a gay movie, and he was as straight as they come; otherwise a morning like this would have had ‘slaps in Robert’s face’ written all over it.

Feeling particularly pleased with himself and not at all hung over (practice makes pros), Robert snuck into the hallway and stuffed one of his socks with icecubes. He woke Jude up by placing it atop his head, like Nick had done it with the ice bag and Nolan after the infamous Martini booze up. Only that Robert was absolutely certain that in the script, Nolan didn’t fling the ice bag at Nick, using it like a wooly spiked mace and yelling abuse.

So, as it turned out, early in the morning, Jude wasn’t opposed to improvising. Robert had the sock-shaped bruise on his forehead to prove it.

If Robert had thought that this little night of mystery had put him on solid ground with his co-star (he hadn’t btw), he was of course mistaken.

When they filmed the New Year Party scene, Robert was out of the blue confronted with a very tiny but very angry looking dwarf (or whatever the political correct term was). He punched Robert in the stomach without a word, and while Robert folded in two, the dwarf turned around and gave a thumbs-up in the general direction of the bar. Tears made his vision a little blurry (packed a mean punch, that little bastard did), but Robert could clearly see Jude silently raising his glass in the dwarf’s general direction.

Oh, this was so on. So very, very on.

Robert paid Jude back in kind by eating about half a kilo of garlic the morning before they shot the romantic walk in the snow. To his credit, Jude didn’t bat an eye, even when he came close enough for Robert’s breath to knock him out cold. However, when Robert had accidentally messed up their kiss under the streetlight for the third time, Jude excused himself. He made it to the nearest waste basket into which he emptied the contents of his stomach rather spectacularly.

Victory for Robert. Okay, fine, this victory had the slight disadvantage that he spent a rather lonely rest of the week because no one would even sit at his table. Robert figured he also was the first person to ever get thrown out of a pub for bad breath.

Things kind of escalated from that point on. Robert hid some beef jerky in Nick Charles’ waistcoat with the result that Jude nearly got eaten alive by Moriarty-Asta who apparently hadn’t been fed for at least a week. Robert unsuccessfully searched for his mobile phone for an entire morning, until Jude matter-of-factly informed him that he had gifted it to the guy playing Fat Foster “just, you know, so he can call his mom on Christmas. Long distance to San Francisco”.

At some point (okay, he might have been a bit drunk on Martinis at that point and that wasn’t his fault either), Robert actually contemplated just murdering Jude and hiding the body. Or paying Jeff to murder him and hide the body. But he wasn’t sure whether Jude hadn’t been in a war and some shrapnel in his bones could reveal his identity later on, so he ditched that plan. It disturbed him deeply, however, that Jude’s entire conversations the next day revolved around untraceable poisons that couldn’t be tasted in Martinis and ways to break into someone’s hotel room without being noticed.

Then they filmed the last scene in the script (out of order, as per usual), the happy ending on the train. It proved to be the longest day ever and for once it wasn’t even Robert’s fault. During yet another (about the thirtieth) break, Robert and Jude found themselves alone in the train compartment. Jude leaned his head back against the cushions and closed his eyes, looking deeply exhausted.

“Who’d have thought? There are people even less professional than you.”

Robert put his feet up on the seat opposite.

“And don’t you forget it. I’m not even close to a mental breakdown.”

Jude peered at him with one eye open.

“You think that’s what’s wrong with him?”

Both of them turned their heads to look out the makeshift window. The actor playing Andrew (Logan Tripod or something? God,   
Robert wasn’t good with names…) sat on a suitcase on the makeshift train station, his face buried in his hands.

“Looks like it, doesn’t it?” Robert said.

“I don’t know. I thought he’d just forgotten to take his meds this morning.“

“Must be some powerful medication then.”

“Not everyone can survive the horrors of the world with just a case of scotch a day, Nolan.”

Robert smirked at what he considered a slip of tongue. Because that line definitely wasn’t in the script.

“All I can say about this business, Nickie, it has put me way behind in my drinking.”

Jude looked at him in mild surprise, then apparently realized his mistake and laughed.

“Apparently delusions are catching.”

“Nice. Now I am clinically insane?”

“If the shoe fits. I wasn’t talking about you though. As hard as it might be to believe.”

He gestured at the window again. And sure enough, the actress playing Dorothy rushed by at just that moment, another tissue pressed to her eyes. Robert rolled his eyes and crossed his arms in front of his chest, getting as comfortable in his seat as is possible. This could take a while.

“I just don’t know who’s worse, him or her,“ Jude mused detatchedly, like they were watching a particularly bad television program.

“Dorothy,” Robert decided instantly. “No human being should be able to produce that many tears in one morning.”

More to himself than to Robert, Jude muttered, “Kids can.”

“They can, can’t they? I always found that odd. I mean, there’s only so much liquid those tiny eyes can hold, is there?”

Jude’s face somewhat resembled England’s sky on a cloudy day now.

“You wouldn’t think they could shout that loud or be that much of a public health hazard either, judging by their size.”

“Not a fan, I take it?”

“You could say that.”

“I’m disappointed.”

Jude arched his brows and leaned to his side, both to be able to stare at Robert and apparently to bring some distance between the two of them.

“Don’t tell me you like children?” he asked and sounded horrified. “You of all people.”

Robert shrugged. 

“Not particularly, no. But I thought I was the only person you treat with such uttermost contempt. Now it’s just not special anymore.”

Jude stared at him for a moment, then he grinned.

“Why, I believe the little woman cares,” he said with the mild version of his usual sarcasm.

“First of all, I’m a guy, thank you very much,“ Robert informed him. “Secondly, we scratched that line from the original script for that particular reason. And thirdly, I don’t. Care, that is.” He paused, and when he found Jude still grinning, he couldn’t help but grin as well. He quoted Nolan after all. “I’m just used to you.”

Jude laughed quietly and mimicked Robert’s posture – feet propped against the seat opposite and arms crossed over his chest. They watched the scenery on the makeshift station for a while, and it almost resembled a real train station – lots of people hurrying back and forth with serious expressions on their faces, hasty discussions in small groups, oh yes, of course, and the occasional guy or gal on the brink of total mental implosion (Dorothy and Andrew now shouting at each other for a change).

“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Jude said abruptly into the silence, his tone of voice conversational. “Do you have any idea where we got the apron from?”

“Which apron?”

“The one I wore to bed – or rather, to bathtub – the other night. I actually have no recollection whatsoever of that night.”

“Me neither,” Robert said reassuringly.

Jude waved his words aside with a dismissive gesture.

“No surprise for you, I reckon. But with me, that normally doesn’t happen.”

“I am absolutely sure we didn’t have sex. If that’s any consolation. You can tell Jeff that, if he asks.”

Jude looked at him, a bit of that expression on his face he wore so bravely on the day of the garlic incident.

“Whyever should he ask something like that?”

“No reason.”

“I don’t think I could ever be that drunk. No offense.”

“None taken.” Robert waved it aside.

“I’m also missing a sock.”

“What, you only got one pair?”

“No, but I really liked this one,” Jude insisted mournfully. “Grey ones, woolen.”

“Oh, yeah, that. I have it.”

Jude slowly arched an eyebrow.

“Well, can I have it back? My feet are tired of having to share the one I got left.”

“Nah, sorry, no can do,” Robert replied easily, and when Jude continued looking at him expectantly, he added, “I’m holding it captive in case I need something to strong-arm you with.”

Jude rolled his eyes.

“You know what? Keep it. As a peace offering, if you will.”

Robert looked at him in surprise, and Jude just shrugged, and that was that. Robert scratched his chin.

“To get back to the real question here, the apron. You reckon we accidentally murdered someone from hotel staff?”

“I think they’d have noticed by now,” Jude replied. Robert made a mental note that he hadn’t outright denied it, either. Jude shook his head. “Where would we’ve hidden the body? The mini bar? No, I think murder is out.”

“Too bad.I’d have enjoyed killing a random staff member together with you. It could have been a bonding experience.Vows of eternal silence over a shallow grave and all that.”

Jude burst out laughing. While Robert looked at him with a mixture of surprise and mild amusement, Jude actually laughed for an entire minute. He gestured at the window. Outside, Dorothy and Andrew were still shouting at each other.

“I guess that can still be arranged. How about those two?”

Robert peered past him. Now Dorothy started crying yet again, and Andrew was banging his head against a wall.

“I love you, Nickie,” Robert said, with in a really badly done false falsetto. “‘cause you know such lovely people.”

Jude snickered again. Then he reached into the pocket of his jacket and produced a small silver bottle. He took a sip and then offered the bottle to Robert – pure scotch. Better than any blood oath, in Robert’s book anyway.

0o0


End file.
